终于自由
别把分拆当成甩卖：分拆出来的公司往往表现优于母公司。
Don't mistake a spin-off for a throwaway: Spin-off companiesoften outperform their parents.
彼得·林奇撰文
By Peter Lynch
想象这个场景：你是一位桂格燕麦（Quaker Oats）的股东，因为你觉得这是个不错的投资，而且你也喜欢燕麦片。某天，邮件给你寄来了免费得来的费雪公司（Fisher-Price）股票——这家桂格燕麦的子公司如今被剥离出来成为一家独立公司。你打电话给经纪人询问费雪公司的经营状况，结果发现它已经连续几个季度亏损。你心想，留着这只“废物”干嘛？于是股票一开始交易，你就迫不及待地卖掉，很高兴每股收到了 11 美元。毕竟，这些股票是你白捡的。
Imagine this scenario: you're a shareholder in Quaker Oats,because you think it is a good investment and you like the oatmeal.One day the mail brings free shares of Fisher-Price, a QuakerOats subsidiary that's now being turned loose as a separate company.You call your broker to ask how Fisher-Price is doing. You findout it has been losing money for several quarters, so you thinkto yourself, Why keep this dog? You sell the shares as soon asthey start trading, and you are happy to receive $11 for each.After all, you got them for free.
几年后，你在翻阅股票行情时，偶然看到了费雪-普莱斯。那 11 美元的股票已经涨到了 38 美元，你多希望自己没注意到它，因为你现在意识到，在实行低价配股的那家公司上，你错失了让本金翻三倍以上的机会，而桂格燕麦（你仍持有）只涨了区区 10%。
A couple of years later, you're browsing through the stock pages,and you come across Fisher-Price. Those $11 shares have become$38 shares, and you wish you hadn't noticed it, because now yourealize you missed a chance to more than triple your money onthe giveaway, while Quaker Oats (which you still own) is up amodest 10 percent.
当一个子公司或部门被从母公司“赶出鸟巢”，这叫剥离。最近这类操作很多。经过几十年的多元化尝试——或者用我的说法，胡乱化（diworsify）——许多公司正在回归核心业务。这事儿有个时髦说法叫“精干化”。如果一个部门跟公司的主营业务不搭，公司就会把它卖掉或者剥离出去。
When a subsidiary or a division is booted out of the nest ofa parent company, it's called a spin-off. Lately, we've seena lot of these. After decades of trying to diversifyĐor as Icall it, diworsifyĐmany companies are returning to their coreoperations. The buzzword for this is "rightsizing." If a divisiondoesn't fit in with a company's main line of work, the companysells it or spins it off.
分拆上市分为两个阶段。首先，母公司发行子公司的股票，并通过公开发售卖出其中一小部分。剩余部分则作为礼物（通常免税）分配给母公司的股东。这类交易之所以吸引力十足，是因为分拆后的公司通常表现优于大盘，尤其是在它们独立后的 24 到 36 个月内。下一页的表格列出了 20 世纪 80 年代和 90 年代一些表现最抢眼的案例。
A spin-off happens in two stages. First, the parent companyissues stock in the offspring and sells a small percentage ofit in a public offering. The rest is distributed as a gift (oftentax free) to shareholders of the parent. What makes these dealsso intriguing is that spin-offs tend to do better than stocksin general, particularly in the first 24 to 36 months after theyget their independence. On the next page is a table showing someof the most impressive performers of the 1980s and '90s.
两位华尔街分析师因专注于分拆业务而成就了职业生涯：罗斯柴尔德公司的芭芭拉·古德斯坦（Barbara Goodstein）和 雷曼兄弟公司的帕特里克·库萨蒂斯（Patrick Cusatis）。库萨蒂斯说，这个想法来自阅读我的第一本书《彼得·林奇的成功投资》（One Up on Wall Street），书中有一个简短章节讨论了这一主题。他如此认真关注，让我十分欣慰。他追踪了 1965 年以来 161 起分拆案例，并得出一个有趣的发现：其中 14% 的分拆公司后来成为收购目标，最终成为其他公司（通常在同行业内）的子公司。
Two Wall Street analysts are making a career out of spin-offs:Barbara Goodstein at Rothschild and Patrick Cusatis at LehmanBrothers. Cusatis says he got the idea from reading my firstbook, One Up on Wall Street, which contains a short section onthe subject. I'm gratified that he paid such close attention.He traced 161 spin-offs going back as far as 1965 and made anintriguing discovery: 14 percent of these spin-offs became takeovertargets and ended up as divisions in other companies, usuallyin the same industry.
费雪-普莱斯是个典型例子。这家被解放的玩具公司独立经营了不到三年，就被美泰公司收购。它在桂格燕麦旗下毫无意义，但对美泰来说却是绝佳的补充。
Fisher-Price is a typical example. This liberated toy companywas on its own for less than three years before Mattel snappedit up. It made no sense at Quaker Oats, but it was a fine complementto Mattel.
我每周会看大量数据，但 14% 的被收购比例确实让我印象深刻。普通公司被收购的概率只有 3% 到 4%，因此分拆公司股东从中受益的可能性是普通公司的三到四倍——这些潜在回报可相当可观。一旦被收购，股价上涨几乎是板上钉钉的事。
I look at a lot of numbers every week, but the 14 percent takeoverrate made an impression. With companies in general, the oddsof a takeover are only 3 to 4 percent, so the shareholders ina spin-off are three to four times more likely to benefit fromone of these potentially lucrative episodes. In a takeover, thestock price is a cinch to go up.
剥离业务之所以表现出色，并非偶然。子公司的管理层不再受制于上级指令，可以大刀阔斧地削减那些旧体制下被忽略的明显成本（这被称为“摘低垂的果实”）。他们变得更具企业家精神。母公司可能对剥离业务的成功有财务上的利益关系。可以肯定的是，它还有情感上的投入。一家母公司最不希望看到的就是自己分离出去的项目失败。因此，它会尽其所能帮助这个新生企业，从清理各种事务做起。
It's no accident that spin-offs have done well. The managersno longer take orders from above and cut costs in obvious waysthat the old regime overlooked (this is called grabbing the low-hangingfruit). They become more entrepreneurial. The parent companymay have a financial stake in the success of the spin- off. Certainly,it has an emotional stake. The last thing a parent company wantsis for one of its own projects to flop. So it tries to do everythingpossible to help the fledgling enterprise, from cleaning up
资产负债表的修复要等到换上优秀的管理层之后才能见效。一家公司如果为了筹钱被迫低价抛售旗下业务，或许根本不在乎后果，但像可口可乐这样的巨头绝不会如此。
thebalance sheet to installing good management. A company that hasto jettison divisions in a fire sale to raise cash may not careabout the consequences, but a powerhouse like Coca-Cola certainlydoes.
可口可乐在 1987 年末剥离了哥伦比亚影业（保留了 49% 的权益），当哥伦比亚影业表现令人失望时，可口可乐竭尽全力扭转局面。随后，它以高价找到了买家。1989 年，索尼以每股 27 美元收购了哥伦比亚，这一价格比其首次交易价格高出三倍多。
Coca-Cola spun off Columbia Pictures in late 1987 (keeping a49 percent interest), and when Columbia proved to be a disappointment,Coke did what it could to turn things around. Then it found abuyer at a fancy price. In 1989, Sony acquired Columbia for $27a share, more than three times higher than where shares firsttraded.
最复杂的拆分要数“小贝尔”们。如果你在 1983 年持有美国电话电报公司（AT&T）的股票，你会一下子拿到七家分拆公司的零碎股票。很多人觉得这很麻烦，但那些一直持有这些零碎股票的人最终得到了丰厚的回报。小贝尔们轻松地完成了成本削减，并在 AT&T 陷入困境的六年里表现亮眼。
The most complicated separation was the Baby Bells. If you owneda share in AT&T; in 1983, you got fractions of shares in sevenspin-offs at once. A lot of people thought this was a nuisance,but those who held on to their fractions were well-rewarded.The Baby Bells did the easy cost-cutting and had a great sixyears while AT&T; languished.
在很多这类分拆案例里，有两股力量从相反方向拉扯着股价。一边是持有母公司股票、但无法参与分拆后业务的共同基金。例如，如果新公司不在标普 500 指数里，那些跟踪标普指数的基金就必须卖出分拆得来的所有股票。这些基金在抛售的同时，那些不想被自己一无所知的新公司所打扰的个人投资者也在卖出。
In many of these spin-off situations, you've got two forcespulling at the stock price from opposite directions. On one sideare the mutual funds that own shares in the parent but can'tget involved with the offspring. For instance, the S&P; Indexfunds must sell whatever shares they get from a spin-off if thenew company isn't in the S&P; 500. While the funds are dumpingtheir holdings, so are individuals who don't want to be botheredwith upstarts they know nothing about.
另一类买家是懂得分拆价值的投资者，他们会在自己认为的价格洼地大量买入股票。这常常导致一种僵持局面，可能会持续好几个月，直到这家新公司有机会证明自己，给华尔街那些指手画脚的人留下深刻印象。就拿 1994 年 4 月从库珀工业分拆出来的压缩机与鼓风机制造商加德纳丹佛机械来说吧，它的股价在将近一年的时间里都陷在交易的低谷里，直到它拿出了超出预期的业绩，让华尔街大吃一惊。直到最近，加德纳丹佛才跳出这个低谷。
On the other side are buyers who understand the virtues of spin-offsand scoop up the shares at what they perceive to be bargain prices.This often results in a standoff that may last for several months,until the new company has a chance to prove itself and impressthe Wall Street kibitzers. Take Gardner Denver Machinery, a manufacturerof air compressors and blowers, which emerged from Cooper Industries in April 1994. The stock was stuck in a trading rut for nearlya year until it surprised the Street with better than expectedearnings. Only recently did Gardner Denver jump the rut.
坦迪堪称资产剥离的高手，它把众多子公司分拆出去，繁衍得如此兴旺，以至于其家族谱系听起来就像《旧约》里的利未家族。1975 年，坦迪生出了坦迪手工艺（Tandycrafts）和坦迪品牌（Tandy Brands），股东们免费获得了这两家公司的股票。接着在 1976 年，坦迪手工艺又生出了斯塔福德-洛登公司（Stafford-Lowdon）。三年后，它生出了科洛泰尔公司（Colortile），1986 年又生出了 InterTAN，这是这一系列分拆中为数不多的失败案例。与此同时，坦迪品牌改名为庞贝公司（Bombay Company），后者在 1991 年生出了坦迪品牌配件公司（Tandy Brands Accessories）。如果你在 1975 年投资 5000 美元在坦迪上，并一直持有所有这些分拆出来的公司，到现在你将拥有 8.6 万美元。
Tandy is one of the champions of spinning things off, sendingso many divisions out into the world that its genealogy beginsto sound like the families of Levites from the Old Testament.In 1975, Tandy begat Tandycrafts and Tandy Brands, and the shareholdersgot free shares in both. Then, in 1976, Tandycrafts begat Stafford-Lowdon.Three years later, it begat Colortile, and in 1986 it begat InterTAN,one of the few losers in this crowd. Tandy Brands, meanwhile,changed its name to Bombay Company, which in 1991 begat TandyBrands Accessories. If you had invested $5,000 in Tandy in 1975and held on to the whole lot, you would have $86,000 by now.
董事会的最新潮流是，那些拥有两三个巨型事业部的公司将自己拆分成等值的几部分。它们通常采取这一行动，是因为认为投资者未能认识到各部分加总后的真实价值。换句话说，股价太低了。因此，西尔斯（Sears）分拆了好事达保险（Allstate），其中 80% 将在今年夏天某个时候作为免税礼物分配给西尔斯的股东。
The latest trend from the boardroom is for companies with twoor three giant divisions to divide themselves into equal parts.Usually, they take this action because they think investors havefailed to appreciate the true value of the sum of the parts.In other words, the stock price is too low. Thus, Sears spunoff Allstate, 80 percent of which will go to Sears shareholdersas a tax-free gift sometime this summer.